On a summer Sunday more than two decades ago, Kate Dallam opened the door of her brand-new farm store and froze.
“The entire place flooded with people. Some were even outside waiting in line,” she recalls. “My stomach dropped and I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for this.”
She laughs about that moment now, but it was the beginning of what Broom’s Bloom Dairy in Bel Air, Maryland, would become. The small farm store grew into a destination for ice cream lovers, cheese buyers and families looking for a taste of farm life just off a busy state road.
Today, the farm milks just over 50 cows, and every pound of milk moves through the family’s own retail channels, from the on-farm store to grocery stores, coffee shops, farmers markets and local stands. What started as a way to connect customers with their milk has grown into a business built around creating products and experiences that keep people coming back.
A Farm of Their Own
Long before customers lined up for cones, Dallam and her husband, David, wanted a life built around cows. She grew up on a dairy, but her husband came into her life through the barn.
“I grew up on a dairy, but my husband didn’t” Dallam explains. “When we met, he was my dad’s hired man. It was just like a country love song.”
When Dallam left for college, her father sold his cows through the federal dairy herd buyout program in the mid-1980s. Suddenly, the future she had imagined in dairy looked uncertain. She changed her major from dairy science to agronomy and later spent 11 years as a conservation planner, but dairy remained the industry both she and her husband knew best.
After they married, Dallam worked her 9-to-5 job while her husband kept working on neighboring dairy farms. The more time they spent around dairy, the more they realized they wanted to have a place of their own.
“David worked on several neighboring farms that were excellent examples of dairy management,” Dallam says. “And even though he enjoyed working for them, we just couldn’t imagine a life without cows, and we really wanted to do something on our own.”
That desire nearly took them out of Maryland. The pair began looking at farms in upstate New York, but when Dallam’s grandmother realized they might leave the area, she made a decision that would change their future.
“About a month before my grandmother passed away, I told her my husband was looking at farms in upstate New York,” Dallam says. “She was so devastated by the thought of us leaving that she changed her will and left the farm to us with us knowing.”
That inheritance gave the couple a place to begin. With help from a local feed mill owner, they bought cows, started small and began building toward the farm they had imagined.
“Our friend from the feed mill made us a sweet deal,” Dallam says. “We were able to buy his cows and get our start in the industry.”
Five years later, they built their first barn on land that had been in her husband’s family since 1726. The couple built the operation from the ground up, moved their cattle and began the next chapter for both the farm and their family.
“At that time, we milked 70 cows” Dallam recalls. “We were just so proud to have a place of our own, and we had so many people who helped us.”
As their family grew, so did the pressure to make the farm support the life they wanted. After her third daughter was born, Dallam began looking for a way to build more income from home.
“I realized it really didn’t make sense to pay for childcare anymore, so I started looking into something we could do with direct sales,” she explains.
That search pushed her toward an on-farm store, where the farm could capture more value from its milk and build relationships with customers already passing the property each day.
Finding the Product That Brought People Back
Before the farm store became known for its ice cream, Dallam experimented with other ways to add value to the milk they produced. She bottled milk, made cheese and tested different products, looking for the right fit for both the business and her customers.
“We did all these little farmers markets with cheese,” Dallam says. “And then I made this milk and olive oil soap that was popular. We even got a bunch of pigs and chickens and sold our own eggs and pork.”
Those products introduced customers to the farm, but Dallam wanted to give them a reason to come back again and again.
“The farmers markets are nice, but I thought it would be nice to stay home once in a while. To do that, I needed a product that would make people remember who we were,” she explains. “I wanted to build a little store but wasn’t sure if just selling milk and cheese would keep people coming back.”
The idea to sell ice cream came to her on a cold, rainy February day while she stood in line at Woodside Creamery in Hockessin, Delaware.
“There were like five people in line to buy ice cream in winter,” she remembers. “And I said to myself, ‘Man, this is it. Ice cream is the ticket to get people to remember us.’”
Dallam went to work and studied ice cream making at Wisconsin and Penn State while the family worked through store design, product development and zoning. Harford County allowed alternative uses on agricultural land, giving the Dallams room to add a retail business to the dairy.
“They allowed us to open a little store, buy an ice cream mix and sell that,” Dallam says. “It was nothing fancy, but people enjoyed it. They would come out, sit down and have ice cream, and we started seeing that this could become something more.”
Bringing the Milk Home
For years, the milking herd and retail store operated as separate pieces of the farm. But as Dallam’s youngest daughters Belle and Emmy became more involved, she and her husband began looking for a way to make the dairy more sustainable for the next generation.
The answer was an on-farm processing plant that allowed the family to bottle milk, make cheese and produce the ice cream mix on site.
“About six years ago we started processing our own milk and making the ice cream mix on site,” Kate says. “Now we make all of our own cheese here, and we bottle fluid milk and sell it in grocery store chains as well as our store and to coffee shops.”
Processing brought the herd, plant and store into one business model and allowed the family to move all of its milk through retail outlets.
“We sell 100% of our milk retail,” Kate says. “We don’t have any wholesale market.”
Building the processing plant also gave the Dallams a way to bring their daughters into the business.
“We have worked our daughters into the equation, making them partners in the operation,” Dallam explains.
Emmy works primarily in the plant while Belle manages the herd and brings a focus on breeding, showing and genetics.
“Because of Belle, we’re transitioning to an all A2A2 herd,” Dallam says. “We’re probably about 70% of the way there now.”
Building the processing plant has pushed the family beyond traditional dairy production and into the world of food manufacturing. Instead of focusing only on the crops and cows, they now had to manage a business with strict regulations, routine testing and detailed documentation.
“Every other week, there’s something that has to be documented to keep the milk plant running,” Dallam says. “There’s recordkeeping, milk testing, sending samples and so many details that go into it. It’s more work than a lot of people realize.”
Balancing Milk, Ice Cream and Community
Location played a role in the farm’s success from the beginning. The Dallams’ farm sits along a busy commuter route leading to Interstate 95, putting thousands of potential customers within view of the farm store every day.
“The traffic just lines up in front of our property every morning,” Dallam says. “We thought, if we could just figure out how to get those people to stop, we had a built-in customer base right there.”
When the family first considered opening a store, they knew the location gave them an advantage. The challenge was finding a way to turn passing vehicles into customers. Over time, the farm store became a destination for people looking for local dairy products, ice cream and a connection to the farm behind the food.
Expanding into processing also changed how the family managed milk production. Instead of shipping all of their milk to a processor, they now have to balance what the cows produce with what customers want to buy. That balance changes throughout the year as consumer demand rises and falls.
Summer brings the busiest season, especially for ice cream sales. The family prepares for increased demand by adjusting production to keep up with customers coming through the store.
“In the summer we need to ramp everything up, because we’re selling a ton of ice cream,” Dallam explains.
Winter brings a different set of challenges. With fewer customers buying ice cream, the family has to find ways to manage milk flow and make sure production matches what the processing plant needs.
“In the winter, we have to find ways to move fluid milk,” Dallam says.
The slower months also provide an opportunity for the farm to support its community. During January, February and March, when milk production can exceed retail demand, the family donates milk to local food pantries. The donations help move extra milk while keeping the farm connected with people beyond the store’s regular customers.
“In January, February, March, we donate a lot of milk to the local food pantries,” Dallam says. “It’s good marketing; it gets your name out into the community in a lot of different circles. It also gives us a tax deduction and it helps us have an outlet for excess milk.”
Flavors People Remember
Launching ice cream gave Kate a part of the business that felt creative, flexible and fun. The case could change with the season, customer suggestions or an idea from an employee, giving the farm store a reason to feel new even to regular customers.
“We’ve made hundreds of flavors of ice cream,” Kate says. “The flavors are always changing. A lot of them come from customer suggestions, and my employees are always bringing new ideas to the table.”
The creative freedom is part of what Kate enjoys most about the ice cream side of the business. That creativity differs from cheesemaking, where precision matters more than experimentation.
“I really like making ice cream because it’s a creative outlet, and it’s really hard to make a bad batch,” she laughs.
One of Kate’s favorite flavors began as a friendly challenge from customers who kept comparing Kate’s lemon ice cream to a favorite shop of their’s on Cape Cod.
“They would say, ‘Your lemon’s okay, but, man, that lemon at the ice cream shop in Cape Cod is better.’ And they would bring it up repeatedly,” Kate recalls. “I was like, I’ll be damned if I can’t make a better ice cream then them. This is driving me nuts!”
Kate eventually recreated the lemon flavor with True Lemon and crushed Lemonheads, adding a unique twist.
“It kind of whips into this almost chiffon-like texture with those ingredients,” she explains. “It’s lighter than most denser ice creams.”
Another flavor that has developed a loyal following is sweet corn ice cream, a seasonal idea Kate created using corn from a nearby grower. It is the kind of flavor that surprises people the first time they try it, then brings them back looking for it again.
Customers even call in January asking when sweet corn will return, but Kate only makes it when fresh local corn is available in summer.
“From mid-July through August, I buy about five dozen ears of corn,” Kate says. “I husk it, boil it, cut it off the cob and put it in ice cream. That’s all it is. It’s excellent.”
Built for the Next Generation
The Dallams’ story has moved in stages: from not having a dairy of their own, to buying cows, building a barn, opening a farm store and eventually adding a processing plant that brought the herd, milk and customers into one business.
The farm’s location has help make that growth possible. Each day, traffic stacks up along the busy road in front of the property, giving people a reason to pull in for ice cream or pick up milk and cheese on the way home.
Now, with Belle and Emmy worked into the operation, the business Kate and her husband built is beginning to move toward its next generation. The daughters bring their own interests to the farm—one focused on the herd, the other on processing—while Kate looks for ways to protect the quality and foundation already in place.
“People are always asking what we’re going to do next,” Kate says. “For us, it’s not about getting bigger. It’s about making sure we’re doing things right and creating something the girls can take in whatever direction they want.”
From a couple determined to farm, the Dallams have built a dairy business that continues to grow without losing sight of where it started. Their journey has taken them from milking cows to bottling milk, making cheese and creating an ice cream destination that brings people back to the farm. As the next generation begins to find its place, the Dallams are focused on protecting that legacy and allowing it to evolve one scoop and one generation at a time.
